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About that HBP: if his only movement/ effort in response to a ball coming at him was to "try to stiff arm the ball for his own protection" by taking his hand to the ball:
1: call time [dead ball, it hit him]
2: call the pitch [ball/strike] by it's location
3: tell him to stay right where he was [presuming it was not K3 of B4]
4: point the ball live and say "Play"
If he tried to stiff-arm the ball, he did NOT try to avoid being hit, he merely chose how, where, and when to "take one for the team". No sale.
For the rest, get over it, as others have suggested.
War story:
Few years ago I [PU] launched the head rat at one of our [HS level] military academies during a Christians vs. Lions game. He was beating the religion out of one of our church schools, 7-0 bottom of the 6th, and had the balls to come screaming out onto the infield dirt to argue about a foul call on the 3d base line that prevented a couple of his runners from scoring.
In the league involved, there was no fixed additional consequence for a coach being ejected, but our contract requires that our board be consulted about how unsportsmanlike behavior is dealt with by schools. A suspension would have kept Coach from working at least one playoff game, so our board was asked if we minded if there was no suspension: I took the position, as the affected umpire and as a member of the board [at that time] that we should not care about suspensions or consequences unless the situation involved violence toward an umpire. We take care of business on the field for that game; what that means tomorrow or in the larger scheme of things is no more our concern than what the league standings are. OK, so he wasn't suspended.
It is more than a year later that I am back at that school: during a rain delay, the same head coach strikes up a conversation about some rules snafu or other he had happen in a game earlier in the season [not our umps]. Everything is real cordial, no problems in the game so far. In the course of the chat, the Coach mentions how "one of your guys tossed me a couple years ago for arguing a foul call ... " [I'm playing the Tar Baby, an' not sayin' nothin' (so far)]
He then proceeds to give me his version of the events, which are close enough to be recognisable; but, needless to say, make him look put-upon by the mean Blue. He then comments that "of course, the ejection was reversed on appeal and the guy was blackballed from our games ..."!!! To steal a line from Ron White: at that point I had the right to remain silent ..... but I lacked the ability [to do so].
Me (smiling): "Well, Coach, y'know that's not exactly what happened. See: you apparently don't remember, but I was the guy that ran you; and I was on our Board at the time. The EJ wasn't ever appealed, we just didn't insist that you sit out the next few games: and the only reason I haven't been back here since then, is I've been doing Varsity games at [names of large public schools], which are rated higher than our private schools. The fact that I'm here today is proof that we don't recognise 'blackballs'. Looks like the rain is slacking off, let's see if we can play some ball."
The look on his face was priceless. I've also never had another moment's trouble from him in all the games I've done with his teams.
[Edited by cbfoulds on Apr 12th, 2005 at 11:38 AM]
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